blue_dolphin

I'd say your plan sounds excellent. I agree they look like either green or brown lentils, both of which cook quickly and are likely to split and get a bit mushy when cooked longer. I find that acceptable in a soup like the one you have in mind. The French green lentils can take a bit longer to cook (although I think full hour is a bit excessive) and will remain intact longer. I wouldn't sub your lentils for the French ones in a salad where you want them to remain distinct but I think that soup would be fine.

For grins:

Yesterday's lunch (and likely today's as well) pasta & veg with a green sauce from Simply Julia, topped with a bit of feta

This here is Anna Banana's Nanner Pudding, served directly in the 1-pint deli tub I picked it up in along with my BBQ items this weekend. Made by and named for Anna Nicole Lindsay, wife of pit-master/chef Logan Sandoval of local pop-up Zef BBQ, it is apparently one of their most popular items. First time I ordered it, I expected to have a spoon or two to see what the hype was but never expected it to be so good. My brother makes a banana pudding that his family swoons over but it's very sweet and completely unappealing to me. This stuff is another level of banana pudding. Not too sweet. Perfect balance of rich and airy pudding. Nice spices in the crumble layer along with pieces of fresh banana. Mmmmmm. Thoroughly enjoyed with a big mug of strong, black coffee - quite a struggle to only eat half.

Pork belly burnt ends and pineapple kimchi sandwich with just a smear of gochujang mayo on a take-and-bake roll from TJ's Made with planned-overs from yesterday's BBQ pick-up. I sliced the pork and warmed it up in the CSO.

All of my All-Clad pans work on my induction burner, though I understand there are a couple of lines that don't. How is it you have found yours to be "not the best?"

I have not. Sounds like they would be very chilI. May have to investigate. I'm guessing you'd want a mix with some fat to keep the oil dispersed. For @Shelby, I have made frosé pops and sangria pops.

Pictures, please, when you...um....execute on that idea!

Wow, almost August and I've hardly made any pops - best get my act together! Using some of the watermelon preserves I made from Vivian Howard's This Will Make It Taste Good, I modeled these after the cocktail of the same name in the book - Watermelon Mint Gimlet pops: I did label the sticks in my tiny handwriting but somehow stuck the decorative mint leaf on the wrong side. And Roasted Peach & Bourbon pops- a classic! These were all gifted (tipped?) to the folks working at a pop-up BBQ place when I picked up my order this afternoon. They all wanted to buy more pops and told me I need to start selling them!

That's pretty much my experience with pear eau de vie. Clear Creek Pear Brandy is my favorite and but it's still not something I care to sip on its own. It is an ingredient of my favorite holiday cocktail, Chuck Taggart's Réveillon, so I always make sure to have some around at that time of year. If the Tia Maria is too sweet for sipping purposes, which you mentioned earlier, consider diluting it into something like a Coffee Old Fashioned with a bourbon or rum that you view sip-worthy as the base spirit, depending on your preferences. For sipping straight, I'll repeat my recommendation for the Koloa Kaua'i Coffee Rum. Very delicious. Perhaps a bit overpriced at around $30/bottle when you might find a nice rum like Doorly's XO for $16.99 (current price at my Total Wine) to blend with your Tia Maria.

Interesting. When I search ‘liquor shortage’ all the articles are about NC with a smattering of VT, Michigan and a few other places. Haven’t seen any shortages here

Watermelon Mint Gimlet p 314 using Watermelon Sweet Potential p 296 from This Will Make It Taste Good I love using the Sweet Potential syrups in cocktails and I didn't want to let summer go by without making watermelon Sweet Potential so I could try this cocktail. Just a small batch - 400g melon cubes + 300g sugar + a thinly sliced lime. No surprise really but I was still amazed at how much the watermelon cubes shrank as their liquid was drawn out into the syrup. Sorry I didn't take before and after photos. The cocktail is delicious. I dialed the syrup back to 1/2 oz as I've done with most of the cocktails in the book. The cubes of preserved watermelon used as a garnish are almost like crisp little watermelon candies. Not something I'd want to eat a ton of but a sweet and surprising little cocktail garnish. Not sure what I'll do with the rest of the Sweet Potential. Maybe add it to the rest of the fresh melon for a batch of popsicles.

I agree that I absolutely want to see at recipe or two so I can see how they're written, how ingredients are specified, etc. I often use Eat Your Books to check out potential purchases. If they've been indexed, it's easy to see a list of the recipes and ingredients. I also check out notes on the recipes if any have been entered. For a lot of newer books, there's a "Digital Preview" that will show a few recipes, too. Paid membership is necessary to maintain a library of your own books, but the features I mentioned above are available with a free account.

I did think of you when I peeled the tomatoes for this 🙃

Deep Run Summer in a Bowl p 17 from the Little Green Dress chapter of This Will Make It Taste Good I really like all the components of this dish - fresh, buttered corn, sweet/tangy tomatoes and cucumbers lightly pickled with Little Green Dress - but on a hot day, I wasn't totally in love with it as a hot dish. Assuming perfect summer produce is available, I'd prefer to have a platter of room temp sliced tomatoes topped with cool LGD cukes with ears of sweet corn on the cob on the side. That said, cooking the tomatoes down and seasoning with sugar, salt and sherry vinegar and warming the corn with butter and salt would certainly perk up less than perfect specimens and once it cooled down to room temp I quite enjoyed it. Tossing sliced cukes with LGD is a trick worth remembering for a quick side. I had this with toasted baguette slices spread with some of the Very Versatile Smear of Stuff p 279 which is now my favorite recipe for sun-dried tomato pesto.

I ordered the Koda 16 on Jun 21. Kind of funny because that seems to be a dividing line in their shipping estimates which keep slipping away. It's gone from early July to early Aug to a more vague August. The last update assured me that it had arrived in the US but they have no idea when port congestion and shipping will allow it to reach their warehouse or, more importantly, me. Along with that bit of info, they did provide a $50 voucher to use for their accessories. Any recommendations vs what I might purchase elsewhere? I need a small turning peel, both for pizza and pita. I have a wooden peel that should suffice for delivering into the oven but I'd like a perforated metal peel, too, and theirs looks nice. Any experience with these items or others from their shop?

Sorry there's a bit of a reflection. They are homegrown sweet onions @ $1.99/lb

I still see it listed in the catalog available for Prime Reading (which is part of Prime.) Not sure if this link will work, but this is the list of cookbooks I get when I search Prime Reading

Ditto that but with Safari.

Stopped at a local farmstand this AM. They used to sell only their own produce but during the pandemic, they started adding some other items. I found this helpful as I was trying to limit my shopping trips. Everything is clearly labeled as to whether it's home grown (green labels) or not. In some cases, the grower of stuff they bring in is cited. The garlic that's on the far right of the bottom shelf below is from Christopher Ranch. Potatoes and onions weren't credited. Their homegrown cukes are 75 cents each, 3 for $2. Sweet corn was the same and I bought 3 of each. Also garlic and shallots. Tomatoes. I got a basket of mixed cherry tomatoes and a few of the heirlooms Greens, crucifers and some of the salad-y stuff. I got flat-leaf parsley, cilantro, basil, dill, green onions, radishes Beets with beautiful fresh greens Peppers Forgot to take pictures of all the tables as my cart got heavier. Melons are coming in so I got a small red watermelon and a Galia melon.

From the sublime to the .... well, quick and easy🙃 I made the Espresso Chocolate Chip Cake from Yossy Arefi's Snacking Cakes and baked it in 3 little loaf pans. Used the 72% cacao dark chocolate chips from Trader Joe's which are excellent. $2.49 for the 10oz bag.

Reading the title of this post, I did a double-, then triple-take because I couldn't believe might be true. Phew, it really knocked the wind out of my sails and I had to go out for a walk to settle down a while before responding. I know that before@IowaDee moved to Iowa, she lived in Woodland Hills and in Newbury Park, where I worked for 20+ years and still live nearby so I've felt a connection to her even though we never met. I'll miss her funny, witty little quips, bird reports and annual grape jelly jar counts. Having a hard time believing there won't be more posts here from @IowaDee My sincere condolences to her husband and family. Thank you @Smithyfor sharing and please let us know if her husband has any wishes for ways that we might honor her memory.

If leftover bread dough is working, why switch? In Mastering Pizza, Marc Vetri has recipes for Naples-style single dough balls @ 70% hydration for home ovens and 60% for hotter pizza ovens. He offers options for whole grain doughs or using a sourdough starter. His dough balls are 270 - 286, so a bit bigger than you want. You could scale down but he kneads them in a stand mixer and my recollection was that you had issues with smaller dough volumes. My Kitchen Aid is OK with the volume in the recipe. It's a relatively quick RT ferment so not a lot of complexity but good if you want pizza tonight...or in your case early tomorrow morning 🙃 In Elements of Pizza, Ken Forkish uses identical measurements to Vetri's 70% hydration dough but all mixing is done by hand so that one could certainly be scaled down to the 200g size you need. His recipe allows for an RT ferment for same day baking or longer in the fridge.

Thanks! I was actually craving @Duvel's potato salad but sadly had only sweet potatoes in the house. With that pineapple kimchi to use up, this seemed worth a try. It turned out well enough that I’ll make it again and would recommend the concept.

I like Pati also and just noticed that the Kindle version of her 2016 book Mexican Today: New and Rediscovered Recipes for Contemporary Kitchens (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) is currently available to Prime members for free.